What was going on when I was born?

''We can say again today, with greater certainty than ever, that cigarettes are the most important individual health risk in this country, responsible for more premature deaths and disability than any other known agent.

International Efforts to provide Saudi Arabia with 1,200 portable Stinger antiaircraft missiles will be revived, according to State Department officials. They said the Reagan Administration had informed key members of Congress of its plan because of the possibility of Iranian air attacks. The move, they said, was taken in response to an urgent request Tuesday by King Fahd. (Page A1, Column 6.) Iraq will continue its blockade of Iran's main oil terminal at Kharg Island, President Saddam Hussein said in an address in Baghdad. (A10:1.)

The Reagan Administration told key members of Congress today that it planned to try again to send Saudi Arabia 1,200 portable Stinger antiaircraft missiles to defend against possible Iranian air attacks, State Department officials said. The officials said the move was made in response to an urgent request from King Fahd of Saudi Araiia, who met on Tuesday in Riyadh with Richard W. Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. Mr. Murphy conveyed a message from President Reagan offering to help meet Saudi requests for help. Procedure Not Decided A Senate aide said the White House had not decided whether to make the sale under the routine procedure of notifying Congress 30 days in advance or to use a special provision of the law, which allows the President to provide military equipment immediately when he deems it in the national interest. Officials said Secretary of State George P. Shultz and others in the Administration had recommended proceeding with the request for the Stingers, valued at $140 million, to show continued American backing for the Saudis at a time of potential conflict with Iran.

The Beatrice Foods Company has reached an agreement to buy Esmark Inc., the huge Chicago conglomerate, for $60 a share, or about $2.9 billion, in cash, food industry sources disclosed last night. The price -- believed, to be the least Esmark would take to guarantee acceptance -- would be $4 a share more than the $2.5 billion that Beatrice had offered only two days earlier. In anticipation of a higher offer, Esmark's shares advanced $2.125, to $58.375, on the New York Stock Exchange, with nearly 1.9 million shares changing hands. Beatrice's shares fell 87 1/2 cents, to $28.375.

In coming weeks, as the battle to carve up a market previously dominated by the American telephone and Telegraph Company enters a decisive phase, phone subscribers in the New York area will be asked to decide which company they want to use for long-distance calls. The selection process is part of Long Distance Equal Access, a plan being phased in over the next three years under the court-ordered breakup of A.T.&T. Under the equal access plan, all long-distance companies will offer the ease of dialing and quality of connection that, until now, only A.T.&T. has had, and customers will have to designate one of them as their primary carrier. At present, customers who use a carrier other than A.T.&T. -- such as MCI or GTE Sprint -- must dial the seven digit local number of that company as well as a multidigit personal access code before making a long-dsitance call. Those calls can be made only from a push-button phone or with an adapter the size of a pocket calculator.

House Democratic leaders put new pressure on the Reagan Administration today to stop trying to link $62 million in emergency military aid for El Salvador to continued aid for Nicaraguan rebel groups. Despite pleas for quick action from President Reagan and President-elect Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador, the Salvadoran aid package was stalled in Congress by disagreement over an accompanying proposel for $21 million in aid to Nicaraguan rebels. In El Salvador today, five former national guardsmen went on trial in the killing of four American churchwomen in 1980. The jury of two women and three men was expected to listen to testimony and arguments by the lawyers before being excused Thursday to reach a verdict.(Page A11.)

The Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company said today that its financial rescue had been "well received" by the financial community and that its funding situation had "stabilized" as a result of the multibillion-dollar financial assistance package assembled a week ago. But the bank said that borrowings through its $5.5 billion bank credit lines had increased from the $2.25 billion of a week ago. It refused to disclose how much. And Continental's stock remained under pressure from reports of waning interst among potential acquirers because the bank's loan problems are more extensive than previously believed. Continental stock, which traded a a new low during the day, closed at 8 3/8, down 5/8, on the New York Stock Exchange.

Nearly five years ago, after a six-day journey from Vietnam as one of the ''boat people'' and five months in a refugee camp, Chi Luu arrived in Elmhurst, Queens. He was not sure what to expect, but he did know what he wanted - an education. ''But I have no idea how well I can do,'' Mr. Luu, who is ethnic Chinese, recalled recently. ''I was concerned about the English language, whether I can compete with the high school students.''

FOR seven years Dr. Vallo Benjamin, a New York neurosurgeon, looked for an apartment in Manhattan with a double-height ceiling. Once he had found and bought one, he spent another eight years remodeling. ''The renovation took so long because when I first started,'' says Dr. Benjamin, ''I didn't really know what I wanted.'' The renovation also took so long because Dr. Benjamin played an active role in construction, bringing to the project time-consuming, almost surgical standards of perfection. ''His profession came through in many ways,'' said the New York architect Paul Rudolph, who designed the renovation. ''In the bathroom, for example, he hand- drilled a fascinating system of tiny drains in the marble floor to carry off the water. '' Despite the time, effort and money spent in its remodeling, the design of the East Side duplex looks effortless. This is largely because the architect, by using reflective or transparent materials, has created an apartment in which walls, floors and ceilings tend to disappear, as if immaterial. Particularly at night, when the precisely placed spotlights focus on the collection of antiques - furniture and carpets seem to float. The apartment is remarkable not so much because of its size but because it has little sense of boundary. The care Dr. Benjamin paid to the details of construction was important in achieving this effect.

The Board of Education decided yesterday to name Nathan Quinones, the Acting Chancellor, as the next Chancellor of the New York City School system. The board will make its appointment official with a formal vote at a public meeting next Wednesday night. James F. Regan, the board president, announced the board's "consensus" decision to schedule the vote after the board met privately with Mr. Quinones for two hours yesterday. "I personally think, as do my board members, that Mr. Quinones has acquitted himself exceptionally well, under very close scruting in a very difficult period of time," Mr. Regan said at a news conference in the board room at 110 Livingston Street in Brooklyn.

Teo Fabi, the young Italian racing driver who is one of the favorites to win the Indianapolis 500 on May 27, has been traveling fast. He qualified for 14th place in the starting lineup and in recent practice sessions has been whistling around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in excess of 208 miles an hour. Aside from Mr. Fabi's exceptional eye-hand coordination and the mechanical wizardry of his crew, the reasons for his sizzling speeds are Skoal Bandits smokeless tobacco, Quaker State oil, Finish First auto finishes, English Leather cologne, Bosch spark plugs, Goodyear tires and Newsweek. They are his car's sponsors. Each has chipped in anywhere from thousands of dollars worth of products to more than $1 million in cash for the privilege of seeing its decals emblazoned on the low-slung No. 33 car.

The head of the Ford Foundation praised Cooper Union at its 125th commencement yesterday for having offered a free education since its founding and having unlocked the ''doors of learning'' to the poor. ''Among the ambitious students who enrolled here were some of the new immigrants who poured into America during the years following Cooper Union's beginning,'' said the foundation's president, Franklin A. Thomas. ''Similar institutions for adjustment and assimilation are as urgently needed today as they were a century ago, for once again America is experiencing a huge wave of immigration.''